


love stays until the end

by Gruoch



Series: In the merry month of June [3]
Category: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Gritty Domestic Bliss, Idiots in Love, Soft Femdom, Unplanned Pregnancy, baby blues, crack-lite romantic tragicomedy, domestic fluff and butt stuff, heads empty hearts full, honest smut, peter "that's my wife" parker, postpartum marital issues, sex is funny yall, sexual (mis)adventures, the real kink is healthy relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-20
Updated: 2020-08-20
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:35:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26015101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gruoch/pseuds/Gruoch
Summary: Michelle’s first inkling of impending disaster comes to her while she’s standing in a changing room at a thrift store in East Village, trying to find an outfit for an upcoming interview for a law school internship.“Try these on,” Gwen says, throwing a pair of white slacks over the top of the changing room door.Michelle pulls them on. An idle thought comes to her mind as she does, a universal concern shared by menstruating people when it comes to wearing white pants:Hope I don’t get my period while wearing these.This thought is immediately followed by another, more alarming one:Wait, when was my last period?She stands there frozen in the changing room, pants left forgotten around her thighs, racking her brain and coming to a terrible, life-altering conclusion.Shit,she thinks.****In which MJ tries to get her groove back, Peter is ride-or-die for her, and everyone is sleep deprived, including the single shared braincell.
Relationships: Michelle Jones/Peter Parker
Series: In the merry month of June [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1855018
Comments: 103
Kudos: 246





	love stays until the end

**Author's Note:**

  * For [seekrest](https://archiveofourown.org/users/seekrest/gifts).



> Seek, I hope you're proud of me XD I'll be slinking back to my garbage can now.
> 
> Credit for baby June’s name goes to the brilliant sagemb.

Michelle’s first inkling of impending disaster comes to her while she’s standing in a changing room at a thrift store in East Village, trying to find an outfit for an upcoming interview for a law school internship.

“Try these on,” Gwen says, throwing a pair of white slacks over the top of the changing room door.

Michelle pulls them on. An idle thought comes to her mind as she does, a universal concern shared by menstruating people when it comes to wearing white pants:

_Hope I don’t get my period while wearing these._

This thought is immediately followed by another, more alarming one:

_Wait, when was my last period?_

She stands there frozen in the changing room, pants left forgotten around her thighs, racking her brain and coming to a terrible, life-altering conclusion.

 _Shit,_ she thinks.

“Are you feeling okay?” Gwen asks her later, while they’re riding the packed, sweaty subway on their way back to Gwen’s apartment, their shopping bags piled in their laps. “You’ve been really quiet.”

“I’m fine. Just tired. School is kicking my ass,” Michelle replies with a nonchalant shrug that belies the absolute screaming panic going on just under the surface.

“Okay,” Gwen says a little dubiously, looking at Michelle out of the corner of her eye.

Back home at her apartment, Gwen breaks out cheap boxed wine and queues up a watchlist of ninety’s era rom-coms on her TV. She pours them both a too-full glass of wine, and offers one to Michelle.

Michelle looks at the proffered wine. She looks at Gwen. The panic bubbles over.

“I think I’m pregnant,” Michelle blurts out.

“Fuck,” Gwen blurts back, rapidly blinking at her. “Why do you think that?”

“‘Cause I got drunk at Ned’s wedding reception and had unprotected sex like an idiot, and now my period is more than two weeks late,” Michelle confesses flatly.

“Fuck!” Gwen says again, with more feeling. “Why the hell would you do something so fucking stupid?”

Michelle throws up her hands. “I dunno! Because of stupid Peter with his stupid abs and stupid biceps and big dumb Bambi eyes.”

Gwen shakes her head, disgusted. “You two deserve each other—couple of horny little idiots, what the _fuck,_ Em?”

She puts the wine away and puts her shoes on instead, making the trek to the corner bodega to buy a pregnancy test while Michelle sits and stares blankly at the TV as it plays _10 Things I Hate About You,_ her life flashing before her eyes.

She’s broken out of this numb near-catatonic state by Gwen’s return. Gwen kicks the door shut behind her as she comes into the apartment. She hands a couple of boxes over to Michelle, a grave expression on her face.

“I bought two, just in case you get like, a false positive or something,” Gwen tells her, with a kind of desperate optimism.

Michelle can only nod, swallowing down the bitter-tasting dread that’s starting to churn in her stomach as she heads to the bathroom.

She sits down on the toilet and opens one of the boxes with shaking hands. She unfolds the instructions and reads them over three times, to make absolutely sure she’s doing this right, and then she takes out the first test.

“Please,” she whispers to any and all merciful divine powers who might be listening, before peeing on the stick.

She holds the test up and waits, her heart pounding in her ears. Her stomach drops when a second line appears in the test’s little results window, bold and unmistakable, like a sucker punch to the gut.

“Shit,” she says, scrambling to open the second test, even though she already knows it’s pointless.

She pees on it anyway. A second line appears once more.

Michelle stares at it, barely breathing, shaking her head.

She’s a year away from graduating with her law degree. She has tens of thousands of dollars of student loan debt hanging over her head, a cruddy little one bedroom apartment that she and Peter can barely afford, a stack of unpaid bills piled precariously on top of their broken toaster in the cramped kitchen. She is married to an absolute idiot disaster of a man who willingly puts himself into life-or-death situations on a daily basis. She had long ago come to terms with the very real possibility that she would one day find herself widowed, but until this very moment she hadn’t really considered the possibility of being widowed _and_ a single mother. The weight of it all comes crashing down on her shoulders, sobering and dizzying all at once.

“Shit,” she whispers to herself again.

She gets up and tosses the test into the trash can. She flushes the toilet, feeling a bit like she’s just flushed her whole life down, too.

***

“What are you gonna do?” Gwen asks softly, gently combing her fingers through Michelle’s hair.

“I don’t know,” Michelle replies numbly, lying limp across the sofa with her head in Gwen’s lap. Her face feels puffy and her eyes sore from crying. “I gotta talk to Peter. I can’t believe we were this stupid.”

“You’re not stupid,” Gwen insists. “I mean, you _were_ stupid, that was an incredibly dumb mistake to make, but it happens. It’ll be okay. Really, MJ—whatever you need, I’m here for you.”

“Thanks. You’re such a supportive jerk,” Michelle says, sniffing.

She goes home to the tiny apartment she shares with Peter and lies down on their bed in the dark bedroom, playing out in her mind the conversation she’s going to have with him when he returns from patrolling. She feels a little nauseated as she goes over and over her imagined script, her leg rolling restlessly across the sheets.

So wrapped up in her thoughts as she is, she startles when the bedroom window slides open, the dread in the pit of her stomach immediately growing heavier as she watches Peter ease his way through the window into the bedroom.

He yanks the mask off, his hair standing on end, and even in the dark Michelle can make out the plum-colored circles under his eyes that he wears like a permanent sign of too many late nights and too many responsibilities. It makes her want to cry again.

“Hey,” Peter greets her with a weary smile, leaning over the bed to kiss her. “You didn’t have to stay up waiting for me.”

“I gotta talk to you about something,” Michelle tells him as he starts stripping off the suit.

“I’m listening,” he says, peeling the sweaty fabric down his thighs.

Michelle takes a deep breath before plunging in head first. “I’m pregnant.”

Peter’s ankles get caught in the suit, tangled up. He stumbles sideways a few steps before falling, crashing headfirst straight into the corner of their heavy wooden dresser hard enough to push it nearly a foot across the floor.

“Oh my god,” Michelle says, jumping up. “Peter!”

“Ow,” Peter whimpers, lying in a heap on the floor, his hands clasped against the top of his head while blood pours down his face.

“That was weird,” he says weakly a short time later, sitting in bed with an ice pack perched on top of his head. There’s a little dried blood still caked under his left eye that Michelle missed while she’d been cleaning him up. “I thought I heard you say you’re pregnant. Ha.”

“I am pregnant,” Michelle confirms as she kneels on all fours and tries to scrub blood out of the carpet.

Peter frowns, blinking slowly. “What?”

Michelle sits back on her heels, looking up at him and sighing. “Peter...I’m pregnant.”

Peter’s frowns deepens. “I don’t understand...how did this happen? We’re always so careful.”

Michelle sighs again.

“Ned’s wedding,” she reminds him.

Peter blinks at her a few more times, and then he covers his face with his hands, groaning.

“ _Oh god_ —Ned’s wedding!” he says. He drags his hands down his face, looking at her a little wild-eyed. “But I mean...it was _one_ time.”

“Yeah, well, that’s all it takes,” Michelle says briskly, bending down to continue scrubbing. The stain stubbornly refuses to budge. Michelle can see their security deposit disappearing in her mind’s eye.

“I think I’m gonna puke,” Peter mumbles, getting out of bed and stumbling to the bathroom.

Michelle abandons the bloodstain and sits on the edge of the bed, feeling exhausted to her very bones, listening to Peter retch in the bathroom across the hall.

He returns a few minutes later, eye red-rimmed in his pale, grave face, taking a seat beside her on the bed. They sit side-by-side in silence for a few minutes, until Peter finally clears his throat.

“I just want you to know that I wasn’t throwing up because...because of what you just told me,” he says. “That would make me a real dick. I was throwing up because I probably have a concussion. Okay?”

Michelle nods. “Okay.”

“Okay,” Peter says again, wetting his lips. “And I don’t want you to worry about anything. You just keep going to school for as long as you can, and try to work something out with your advisor. Take...sick leave or something when you have to. I’ll drop out of my grad program and get a second job—”

“Peter, _no,_ ” Michelle says immediately, feeling suddenly close to tears again. “You worked so hard.”

“So did you,” Peter says firmly. “Look...let’s be realistic—I’m never gonna be able to hold down a steady job the way you can, either way. It makes more sense for you to finish. You know I’m right.There’s no way we can support a kid if we’re both in school at the same time.”

“So maybe we don’t...” Michelle says quietly.

She can feel Peter startle next to her, like the thought hadn’t even occurred to him.

“You’re gonna keep it, right?” he asks, almost timidly. “Michelle?”

Michelle doesn’t answer him. She lies down on her side facing away from him and lets the silence stretch out along with the shadows on the walls.

She finds herself thinking about her mother—her brilliant, out-spoken, creative mother, who had driven alone in her old Volvo station wagon across the country to pursue a doctorate degree at Berkeley, and instead had accidentally run down a bespectacled, WASP-y grad student in a crosswalk near the Rose Garden. 

Her mother had knelt on the asphalt and cradled the young man’s bleeding head in her lap, and it had been, as her mother told Michelle repeatedly over the years, love at first sight—for the bespectacled grad student, at least. He’d spent the next four months ardently wooing Michelle’s mother, and it had worked because Michelle had been born nine months later, and her parents had married the month after that, and instead of getting a degree, her mother had left school to work as a clerk in a law office and raise a family.

Her mother had instilled in Michelle the importance of intersectional feminism and social justice and environmental consciousness, and had also taught her that love was beautiful and precious but not immune to the erosive forces of lingering regrets and resentment and the ghosts of unfulfilled ambitions.

When Michelle had gotten her first period at age twelve, her mother had offered her a box of Kotex pads, an ancient copy of _Our Bodies, Ourselves,_ and this advice:

“A woman has rights under Islam to be satisfied by her husband,” her mother had said. “If he can’t please you and won’t learn how, divorce him.”

“Mom, I’m twelve,” Michelle had reminded her.

“Good. You should learn your worth from a young age. You don’t exist for a man’s pleasure. Your wants and desires and ambitions are every bit as valid as his,” her mother had replied, before disappearing back into the tiny spare bedroom that served as her art studio, where she spent most of her time those days.

Michelle had not been surprised when, the following year, her parents had divorced. Nor was she surprised when they had remarried six months later, or when they had separated the summer after Michelle’s freshman year of high school and her mother had left the city to finish her long-paused doctorate in Chicago, before eventually taking a teaching position at a small private college in California. Michelle had chosen to stay in New York with her father, who had a stable tenured appointment in the humanities department at Columbia, and was loving and a good listener and knew a lot about a very specific period of modern Irish history, but very little about raising a teenage daughter alone. Michelle had taken her mother’s advice to heart and learned very quickly how to be self-reliant and make her own way in the world, pursuing her hopes and dreams unfettered by anyone else’s expectations, and that had worked very well for her up until this present time.

Michelle wonders now if this is history repeating itself, if they’ve doomed themselves to aborted dreams and regrets and resentment, doomed their marriage to a slow, sad death, all because of one untimely accident.

She’s startled out of these thoughts when Peter lays a warm hand against her hip.

“Hey,” he says, softly. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked you that. Whatever you want to do, whatever you decide...I’m right there with you, okay? It’s you and me. It’s always you and me, Em. I love you.”

Michelle takes a deep breath. She covers his hand with her own.

“Okay,” she agrees.

***

“You’re gonna keep it?” Gwen asks in disbelief, looking at Michelle over the rims of her glasses. “What about school? The internship you wanted...how are you gonna do that?”

“We’ll make it work,” Michelle says firmly, like she doesn’t have doubts every minute of the day, like she doesn’t lie awake every night pondering that exact question.

Gwen continues to look at her, her expression hard. “And what about… _Spider-Man?_ Tell me that idiot is gonna give that up…”

Michelle swallows, but she tightens her jaw as she meets Gwen’s eyes. She shakes her head. “We haven’t talked about it. And…I can’t ask him to do that.”

Gwen’s eyebrows shoot upward. “Uh, yes, you _absolutely_ can. You’re gonna have his baby—you can tell him to do anything you damn well want.”

“No,” Michelle says firmly. “I won’t do that. I knew what I was getting into when we got together. I knew…what could happen to him. To us. And I made my peace with it. It’s not like we never planned on having a family and having to deal with this eventually. It’s just…happening a little sooner than we expected. That’s all.”

Gwen looks at her a moment longer, and then takes a breath, pushing her glasses back up on the bridge of her nose.

“Well,” she says. “I always wanted to be the cool aunt, and my brothers don’t exactly seem to be intent on settling down anytime soon, so…” She smiles at Michelle. “Yeah. I’m honestly kinda excited.”

Michelle returns her smile, feeling lighter. She leans over, wrapping her arms around Gwen’s waist and laying her head against Gwen’s shoulder. “I love you, you big jerk.”

Gwen hugs her back, squeezing her tightly. “I love you, too, you dope.”

The lightness lasts approximately two weeks, and then morning sickness hits Michelle like a truck.

“Ugh, god, why do people willingly choose to go through this?” she asks, spitting bile into the toilet and grimacing at the vomit that clings to the ends of her hair, her stomach churning.

“Can I get you anything?” Peter asks, kneeling next to her on the bathroom floor and rubbing her back.

“Yeah, a time machine and a condom,” Michelle replies, only half-joking. She vacillates these days between a kind of calm, accepting contentment with her decision, and a firm, heart-pounding belief that she’s made a terrible error. Moments like these—deep in the grips of nausea, her head buried in the toilet bowl—push her towards the latter sentiment.

She stubbornly fights through it. It helps that Peter is constantly apologetic and accommodating and has been much better about picking up after himself and washing the dishes. His enormous guilt complex usually drives Michelle up the wall, but right now she relishes it. If she’s going to vomit her guts up everyday for several straight weeks, it only feels fair for him to suffer a little for his involvement in her misery.

But it’s genuine excitement that she feels when they head to her OB-GYN’s office for the first ultrasound. She lies back on the exam table, hands clasped over her chest, feeling her heart pounding under her palms as the computer screen angled above her lights up in swirls of grainy grey across a field of black.

And _there_ —a tiny heart fluttering in the darkness, beating like little wings.

“Wow,” Peter says, breathless, awed.

He turns to look at Michelle, his eyes shining in the low light, something tender and raw and vulnerable in his face, and Michelle thinks she’s never seen him look so broken open in all their years together.

His father is dead, she remembers, and the man who raised him, and she feels in that moment that whatever discomfort she has and will endure, whatever doubts she has and is yet to face, all the worries and unpaid bills and sleepless nights are totally insignificant. She is suddenly overwhelmed with love—for Peter, and for the little life they’ve created together, the little life they share.

She reaches for his hand, clasping it in hers and twining their fingers together, and she thinks they can do this, together. They can do anything together.

***

There are a lot of things about pregnancy that no one ever told Michelle about, she discovers as the months progress.

The leg cramps. The sweating. The hemorrhoids. The stubborn hormonal acne that colonizes the left side of her jaw during her second trimester. The excruciating sciatica that develops in the third. The weird jolts of pain she’ll randomly get deep down in her pelvis, like someone is electrocuting her in the crotch.

The body that she has inhabited for two-and-a-half decades morphs into something alien and uncomfortable, and all she wants is for it to all be over so she can remember herself again.

“You’re glowing,” Betty coos at her, at the baby shower Betty has thrown for Michelle a few months before her due date.

“You have a sweat ‘stache and cankles,” Gwen says, sharing Michelle’s fervent devotion to always telling the cold hard truth.

The baby shower is nice. Michelle is given enough diapers to last the first year of their baby’s life, and no idea where the hell she’s going to put them all in their tiny apartment. Tony and Pepper deliver a stroller that costs more than several months of Michelle’s and Peter’s combined wages. Betty gives her a book called _Your Orgasmic Pregnancy_ and a set of hand blown glass dildos.

“Mom deserves a present, too,” Betty says with a coy wink.

Michelle gives her a thin smile in return. Pregnancy hormones combined with the uncomfortable changes in her body have made her simultaneously the horniest she’s ever been in her life and absolutely repulsed by the very idea of physical intimacy. Her and Peter’s sex life has dwindled in the past month to the occasional half-hearted fondling before they fall asleep, exhausted. _Your Orgasmic Pregnancy_ and the glass dildo set wind up under her bed, buried under a pile of diapers.

The baby shower is nice, but the birthing classes she and Peter attend at the local hospital are brutally sobering.

“If I shit the bed while pushing the baby out, I don’t want you to _ever_ tell me,” Michelle informs Peter as they depart from the class on a brisk December afternoon, just a few weeks shy of her due date.

“I’ll take it to the grave,” Peter promises, looking slightly shell-shocked by the experience they’ve just had in the class.

“Are you _absolutely_ sure you want to do this thing naturally at the birthing center and not at a hospital—you know, where they have like, all the good drugs and epidurals and stuff?” he asks her later, when they’re lying curled up in bed together, spooning.

“It’ll be fine,” Michelle assures him. “I’m tough.”

“Yeah, you are, of course. I have total faith that you can do this,” Peter says. “I’m less confident about my ability to handle this. I just…I’m _really_ freaked out about the thought of you being in pain. I mean, that stuff the midwife was talking about today—about your bones, like… _separating_...? I thought I was gonna pass out.”

“Peter, you’ve come home multiple times with compound fractures. Your bones were sticking out of your body,” Michelle reminds him.

“Yeah, but those were _my_ bones,” Peter says. “Who gives a shit about my dumb bones? _Your_ bones, though? My wife’s beautiful bones? I might die.”

Michelle rolls over to face him, an action that takes an enormous amount of effort at this late stage of her pregnancy.

“You are such a soft baby,” she says fondly, running her fingers through his hair.

“I am,” Peter agrees wholeheartedly. “Which is why I’m _pleading_ with you to reconsider.”

“Women’s bodies are designed to give birth. It’s a normal process,” Michelle says, parroting the kind of language she’s read in the natural childbirth books she’s been voraciously consuming the past few months. “It will be fine.”

It is _not_ fine, because Michelle is married to superhero who does dumb, dangerous things all the time—like fight genetically engineered lizard-men in sketchy underground laboratories while she goes into labor on New Year’s Eve, stranded and alone in their apartment.

The natural childbirth books describe labor and delivery as something beautiful and empowering. Michelle, squatting next to the sofa in stained sweatpants, trying to text and call her stupid absent husband in between debilitating contractions, profoundly disagrees. She feels the opposite of beautiful and empowered—she feels helpless and alone and very, very pissed.

“Peter, I’m gonna fuck you up,” she hisses into the phone when her idiot husband finally— _finally_ —picks up.

“Get in line,” Peter jokes.

It’s a very bad joke. There’s some kind of awful roaring, grinding noise in the background that in other circumstances would have made Michelle concerned for his safety, but right now she just hopes that whatever it is doesn’t murder Peter before she can.

“May’s stuck at work, the ER’s full of drunk idiots tonight, but I called Tony,” Peter tells her, sounding shaky and out of breath, like he’s running or something. The roaring sound is louder. “He’s on his way to get you. I’ll be there soon, I promise, MJ, I’m gonna—”

The call ends abruptly, which usually would also worry Michelle, but she’s immediately beset by another powerful contraction that pushes out any other thought or her ability to do anything aside from cling to the sofa and pant until it passes.

It’s an hour before Tony and Happy arrive to take her to the birthing center, delayed by New Year’s Eve traffic, and then they spend yet another hour stuck in that same traffic on the way to the birthing center. Michelle is having very real concerns that she’s going to give birth in a car with only a pair of dumb old men to assist her when she comes to the decision that maybe Peter had been right all along.

“I’ve changed my mind,” she announces, after another excruciating contraction. “I want drugs. I want all the drugs. Please, can we go to the hospital instead?”

“Absolutely,” Tony tells her, rubbing her hand comfortingly and sounding immensely relieved by her request. “You’re the captain of this ship. You want to go to a hospital, we’ll go to a hospital. FRIDAY, get us the fastest route to the nearest hospital with a decent maternity ward, then reroute traffic or do whatever you have to in order to get us there even faster. I literally do not care what it takes, as long as no one dies.”

 _“You got it, boss,”_ the A.I. cheerfully chirps from the monitor in the dashboard.

Happy threads the car through traffic and careens around corners at breakneck speeds, racing towards their destination, and Michelle feels, as she often has throughout her pregnancy, like she is at the total mercy of outside forces. All she can do is groan through another brutal contraction and squeeze Tony’s hand tighter, holding onto him for dear life and trusting that all of this will work out in the end.

***

June Benjamin Jones arrives in the early hours of the new year, nineteen-inches long, six pounds even, ten fingers and ten toes, a head full of downy-soft curls. Utterly, utterly perfect. Michelle wonders how it’s possible for her exhausted body to hold as much love as it does as she gazes down upon her daughter’s little scrunched face.

Peter arrives a short time later, beat to hell and back, a fractured clavicle, seven broken ribs, a collapsed lung, a punctured eardrum. He has enough remaining strength and thrumming adrenaline in his veins to hold his newborn daughter for a minute, before promptly collapsing and having to be wheeled away for emergency surgery. The very opposite of perfect, an utter, unmitigated disaster of a man. Michelle, still high on endorphins and therefore in a forgiving mood, loves him anyway.

“Iron Man saw my vagina,” she murmurs to Peter later, when he’s made it out of surgery and the nurses have kindly wheeled his own hospital bed up to stand next to hers.

“That’s okay,” Peter assures her. “I’m pretty sure he’s seen a lot of vaginas, so you didn’t steal his innocence or anything. Don’t feel too bad.”

“Ha,” Michelle replies, rolling her eyes. “How many of the people attached to those vaginas have to sit through Thanksgiving dinner with him, knowing that he’s gazed upon their nether regions?”

“Hm...well, at least two people, now. So you’re not alone.”

“Fair point,” Michelle agrees, shrugging.

“It’s kinda funny,” she murmurs after a few minutes.

“What’s that?” Peter mumbles back drowsily.

“Our whole lives just changed,” Michelle replies. “It’s not just you and me anymore.”

Peter’s hand wanders across the space between them, seeking her own hand out and grasping it.

“It’s always you and me,” he says, squeezing her hand.

***

_It’s always you and me_ is a lovely sentiment, but not entirely true when only one person is physically equipped for feeding a voracious newborn, Michelle learns in the following weeks.

“I think she wants mom,” Peter says, a touch desperately, as he sits on the edge of their bed and gently rocks a wailing baby June.

Michelle groans, staring up at the cracks in the ceiling with dry, bloodshot eyes.

“She just ate like an hour ago,” she says. “She can’t be hungry. Did you change her?”

“Yeah, I did. I think she’s hungry. Or sleepy? I don’t know,” Peter replies, frowning down at June, his own eyes ringed with black like a raccoon’s mask and a week’s worth of beard growth darkening his jaw.

Michelle groans again as she sits up and reaches for the howling baby. She brings June to her breast, wincing as June latches on like a sucker fish. She thinks she understands now why more people don’t talk about the horrors and indignities of pregnancy and childbirth and parenting a newborn—the human race would die out if people knew the full truth.

She sits back against the headboard, closing her eyes and wincing again as June gnashes her hard little gums together. Michelle finds herself empathizing with dairy cows a lot of late as she spends hours around the clock, day-in and day-out and long into the night, either nursing June or being hooked up to a noisy breast pump.

“Did you even move today?” Peter jokes when he comes home from work one evening to find Michelle sitting and feeding June in the exact same spot on the sofa where she’d been sitting and feeding the baby when he had left early that morning.

Michelle just glares at him. There are moments during these endlessly long, monotonous, exhausting days and nights—many, many moments—where she understands with a kind of piercing clarity why her parents divorced, why her mother finally said enough is enough and packed her bags and left to pursue her own freedom, and it scares her a little. It scares her, because she can see the appeal—her fantasy and her nightmare intertwined.

“I’m a horrible person,” she says tearfully when Gwen comes to visit. “I hate my husband.”

“You’re not a horrible person and you don’t hate Peter,” Gwen replies patiently, making kissy faces at June. “You’re sleep deprived and bored and your hormones are out of whack, and you haven’t gotten laid in forever. Cut yourself some slack. Oh my gosh—aw! She just smiled at me.”

“My mom says it’s too early for her to smile,” Michelle says, sniffing. “It’s just a reflex.”

“It was a smile for sure,” Gwen insists, cooing at the baby. She looks over Michelle. “Look, what you need is a little time for yourself—for you and Peter. _Alone,_ with no screaming baby hanging off your boob. Why don’t you let me and Harry take Junie for a couple hours tomorrow afternoon, and you and Peter can, you know... _reconnect._ Your doctor gave you the all clear, right?”

Michelle purses her lips. She had, in fact, been given the all clear to resume “marital intimacy,” as her elderly male gynecologist had delicately put it, at her six week postpartum check up, but she’d been too busy taking care of a newborn and being exhausted and resenting her husband’s freedom to even consider it.

“Maybe you’re right,” she says.

“Of course I’m right,” Gwen says, sticking her tongue out at June. “Oh! She smiled again!”

***

The following afternoon, Michelle dutifully hands June off to Gwen and Harry, feeling like she’s giving them her whole heart.

“I put an extra bottle in the diaper bag,” she tells them. “And another set of clothes. Make sure you keep her head covered—it’s cold. Call me if she starts crying.”

“We can handle it, Michelle,” Gwen assures her, cradling June close.

“You two kids have fun,” Harry says with an exaggerated wink as they leave. “Text us if you need more time.”

Michelle gives him a tight smile as she shuts the door behind them. She leans against the door for a moment, taking a deep breath. She feels a little anxious, and she’s not sure if it’s because this is the first time she’s let June out of her sight for longer than five minutes, or if it’s something else.

She pushes away from the door and goes to the tiny bathroom with the intention of taking a long shower, an absolute luxury now, only to find that the hot water isn’t working. She stands under the icy spray and races to wash her hair, her whole body covered in goosebumps. She shuts the water off and stands there shivering for a moment, and then she reaches down between her legs and gingerly slips a wet finger inside herself.

She’d made the mistake of using a little hand mirror to examine her tender nether regions the day they’d brought June home from the hospital, peering down at the reflection of her bruised, swollen parts with a kind of fascinated horror, wondering at the violence of birth. She hadn’t been able to bring herself to take a peek down there since then, but the memory remains. Everything feels more or less back to normal now, but she can’t quite shake the slight queasiness she experiences as she cautiously touches herself there for the first time in months.

The image that greets her in the mirror over the sink as she steps out of the shower doesn’t appease this feeling, either. She stands naked and dripping on the bath mat, frowning at the still-livid stretch marks striping her hips and the soft loose swell of her belly and her raw chafed nipples, wondering when her body would feel like it belonged to her again, if it ever would.

She shakes herself out of this rumination, throwing a loose dress over her head and tugging it down, refusing to look at the mirror again as she leaves the bathroom.

Michelle finds Peter has returned home while she was showering. He’s sitting on the sofa, shirtless and wearing sweatpants with threadbare knees, hunched over and frowning while he examines a sheet of paper in his hand and paws at the coarse dark stubble on his jaw with the other. He looks up as Michelle walks into the room, quickly folding the paper and setting it aside on the coffee table. He offers her a tired smile.

“Hi, baby,” Peter says, holding an arm out to beckon her over. “You look so pretty.”

Michelle goes to him, settling down in his lap. “I washed my hair for the first time in two weeks. The hot water’s out again.”

“It is?” Peter grimaces. “Okay, I’ll get it fixed.”

Michelle reaches up and gently rubs her knuckles over the rough hollow of his cheek, frowning at how thin his face has gotten again. Peter rarely voices concerns or complaints, instead dealing with stress by rearranging criminals’ teeth in fits of intense violence and rapidly shedding body mass the way other people remove their winter coats. Both worry her.

She gestures to the folded paper on the coffee table. “Is that another letter from the electric company?”

“Uh...yeah. But don’t worry about it,” Peter says, tucking a damp strand of her hair behind her ear and kissing her cheek. “I’ll take care of that, too. Last minute saves—that’s my specialty.”

He smiles again, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes, and then it falters a moment later.

“I’m sorry,” he says, his voice breaking. “I know you’re having a hard time right now, with the baby and everything...I know...you haven’t been happy. You and Junie deserve better. I wish I could give you better.”

“I am happy,” Michelle lies, making herself smile for him. “When I’m with you, I’m happy. It’s you and me, remember?”

She kisses him, then runs a finger along his bare clavicle. There’s a bruise the size of her fist under the bone, wine-purple and angry. “What happened?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Peter says again. “Doesn’t even hurt.”

“Tough guy.” Michelle smirks and raises an eyebrow, pressing a thumb into the bruise.

“Ow,” Peter says, pouting at her. “Okay, it hurts when you do that.”

“Sorry,” Michelle says, bending down to place a soft, contrite kiss on the bruise. She sits up and shifts around, hiking her dress up around her hips and setting her weight across his thighs. She wraps her arms around his shoulders and leans forward, kissing his mouth this time, running her tongue along the seam of his lips and humming in approval when he immediately opens for her, his hands settling warm and light and familiar against her hips, sending a little thrill down deep into her belly and reminding her again of how much she’s missed this.

“Hi,” Peter says, breathless, when they part, smiling at her, his pupils already blown wide and dark.

“Hi, baby,” Michelle murmurs, smiling back. She runs her thumb across his flushed lower lip. “My baby...I missed you.”

Peter cups her face in his hands, his expression softening. “I didn’t go anywhere.”

Michelle puts her hand over one of his, turning her head to kiss the inside of his wrist, before climbing off of him and gently tugging on his hand.

“Let’s go to bed,” she suggests.

“Yeah? You want to—okay,” Peter says, his smile brightening, before he hesitates. “Where’s Junie?”

“Harry and Gwen took her to the park,” Michelle says, pulling him to his feet.

Peter quirks an eyebrow as he follows her down the hall to their bedroom. “You trust Harry to take care of our baby?”

“I trust Gwen,” Michelle corrects, pushing him towards the bed. “She’s the only responsible one out of our social circle, at this point.”

“Fair,” Peter replies, dropping backwards onto the bed. He smiles up at her a little sheepishly. “I’m warning you now—I’m probably not gonna last long. It’s been...wow, a hot minute since we’ve done this. I gotta work the ‘ol stamina back up again. On the plus side, I can probably go a few rounds in a row.”

Michelle snorts as she climbs into bed and sits astride his hips again. “I love how you can simultaneously brag and be self-deprecating.”

“I’m a man of many talents,” Peter says with a cheeky wink, skimming his hands up her sides until his thumbs rest under the swell of her breasts.

Michelle takes his hands and brings them back to her face, offering him a brief smile before her expression turns serious.

“I need to lay down some ground rules,” she says.

Peter nods solemnly. “I’m listening.”

“I want the lights off, and I wanna be on top.”

Peter salutes. “You got it, babe.”

“And I don’t want you to touch my boobs,” Michelle adds. “Or anywhere below the belly button. Actually...just don’t touch me below the shoulders. And no penetration of any kind.”

A faint frown line appears between Peter’s eyebrows, even as he nods. “I...okay? Yeah.” The corner of his mouth tugs up into a little amused smile. “So I’ll just...rub your earlobes, I guess.”

Michelle rolls her eyes. “Hilarious.”

“No, but seriously...if this was a video game, it would be like you just put it on hard mode,” Peter says. “Can I... I dunno...get like, some cheat codes maybe?”

It’s a reasonable request. Unfortunately, Michelle can’t think of anything to offer him.

“Hey,” Peter says gently, when it’s clear she’s struggling. “If you’re not ready yet, that’s okay. You just had a baby. I can wait. No big deal. Doesn’t bother me at all.”

“Yeah, well, it bothers me, okay?” Michelle snaps back, feeling tears of frustration burning in her eyes. “This was supposed to be this...this nice afternoon, just you and me, and it’s....”

Peter sits up, pulling her face close to his and pressing their foreheads together.

“Hey,” he says again. “I’m right here. It’s still you and me. What’s the matter? What do you need?”

“I don’t even know,” Michelle says dully. “I keep worrying...that we’ll end up like my parents. Resenting each other, ‘cause we got in over our heads.”

Peter offers her a soft smile, his fingers gently rubbing the back of her neck. “I don’t resent you. You and June—you’re the best thing that ever happened to me. And if you resent me, well…” His smile tugs wider, rueful. “I probably deserve it.”

“Peter…” Michelle says softly, her voice breaking. She feels close to tears again, and she’s not even sure why.

Peter cups her face in his hands and kisses the corner of her mouth, sweet and chaste.

“How about we just take a nap?” he offers. “I think we could both use one.”

Michelle can’t disagree with that. They lie down together, Michelle resting her head on the soft dip between Peter’s chest and shoulder. Peter falls asleep almost immediately, but Michelle lies awake, listening to the steady, deep rhythm of his breathing and tracing a finger around the bruise under his collarbone. Peter looks younger when he’s asleep, the hollows under his eyes softened, appearing more like the sweet, awkward boy she’d had a crush on in high school and less like the man she’d fallen in love with years later, with the weight of the world on his shoulders, and she wants to hold onto that for a little while, while she can.

***

“So,” Gwen says with a coy smile when she stops by to visit the next day. “First time back in the saddle...how did it go?”

“It didn’t,” Michelle replies sourly, picking at the gross crusty breastmilk stains on the front of her t-shirt.

Gwen raises her eyebrows. “No? What happened—did someone rob a bank and interrupt you guys?”

Michelle shakes her head. “No, for once it wasn’t Peter. It was me. I just...couldn’t do it.”

“Oh, honey,” Gwen says, rubbing Michelle’s arm. “You really need to stop being so hard on yourself. You just had a baby. I wouldn’t want to jump right back in either.”

“No—I _wanted_ it. I still really want it,” Michelle corrects. “But I just… _couldn’t._ And I hate it. I feel like...we’re missing something. It’s like all we talk about anymore is how many poopy diapers June had and whether or not we’re gonna be able to pay the rent. And then, you know, the whole Spider-Man thing…”

She takes a deep breath. “It’s like…I had my whole life planned out since I was ten years old, and then I got with Peter and he brought this element of total chaos into my life, but it was fine because we always had each other, you know? And now I feel like everything is up in the air and I don’t even have that, and…I dunno…I miss having him all to myself, I guess. I miss...having at least an _illusion_ of control over my life.”

“Okay, so—you just gotta think outside the box,” Gwen says briskly. “P-in-V sex is not the end all, be all. Try a little mutual masturbation or something, ease back into it. Or hell, you said you want control—use this as an opportunity to get adventurous. Tie that idiot up and stick a vibrator in his ass.”

She pauses, considering, before giving a little shrug. “Actually, given what I learned about Peter’s sexual preferences from our time sharing an apartment with paper-thin walls in college, I can say with some confidence that he’d probably really be into that.”

“Hm,” Michelle says, thinking. She looks down at little June lying in Gwen’s lap and waving her tiny fists. The baby gurgles at her, June’s lips curling up at the corners in a gummy grin.

It’s probably just gas, Michelle thinks, but it still makes her heart swell. It seems, sometimes, that there is very little to smile about these days, but June at least is perfect.

***

They try again several more times in the following few weeks. Michelle always initiates and Peter responds with a hesitant, cautious enthusiasm, following her lead, which she both appreciates and finds bitterly frustrating, especially when each attempt ends in failure. June will wake early from her nap, howling, or Peter’s phone will start buzzing with an alert from the police scanner it tracks, or Michelle will start overthinking it again the second Peter’s hands drift to her leaky, milk-heavy breasts or down between her thighs, and things will fizzle before they ever really take light.

It doesn’t help that Peter is so god damn _nice_ about it. Every time Michelle falters, he immediately showers her in support, which ironically has the effect of making her feel even more frustrated and alone and lacking control. There is a cruel little whisper in the back of her mind that suggests that maybe he’s relieved by their lack of intimacy, and even though she knows it’s nonsense it still irks her, rearing its ugly head in the middle of the night while she’s up with June or during one of the long stretches where she’s alone in their tiny apartment during the day. Gwen tells her to get a hobby to keep herself busy, but Michelle finds herself too exhausted to pursue creative outlets, passing the hours by mindlessly refreshing various social media pages on her laptop instead and longing for the day when she can return to law school.

Michelle sits on her spot on the sofa feeding June again, feeling like she’s going to start growing roots there soon. She scrolls through the news aggregator app on her phone while June contentedly nurses, trying to get an idea of events going on in the world outside the minuscule confines of her apartment walls.

She pauses when she reaches a headline from the Daily Bugle. It’s a website she usually only checks for the amusement that comes with reading their absurd, inflammatory articles about Spider-Man, but this headline attracts her attention for a different reason.

 _Spider-Menace teams up with notorious burglar Black Cat to terrorize city_ , it reads. There’s a video below it, the still showing Spider-Man standing back to back with Felicia Hardy, her white-blond hair pulled back in a high ponytail and her ample curves poured into a sleek black catsuit.

Michelle plays the video. She watches Spider-Man and Black Cat twist and leap in graceful, perfectly synchronized acrobatics as they take down a group of armed, masked men together. The fight is over in under a minute—quick, clean, efficient. Spider-Man and Black Cat stand amongst the sprawled, groaning bodies of their defeated foes and high-five each other, their body language familiar and playful.

Michelle is not a jealous person. After everything they’ve been through together, she is very confident in her husband’s unflagging devotion and commitment to her. Their relationship is built on love and mutual respect and a deep, abiding trust. The edifice may have occasionally crumbled, as evidenced by their numerous temporary break ups over the years, but the foundation it’s built upon is deep and strong and lasting.

So when she observes the scenes playing out on the phone’s screen—Felicia’s sly, wide-mouthed grin as she looks over at Spider-Man, their pinky fingers linked together like they’re partners in crime, like they’re partners in something else—Michelle doesn’t feel jealous.

What she feels is even worse—a deep, aching sense of loneliness.

***

May Parker comes to their apartment late the following afternoon, bearing a trio of champagne bottles in a reusable grocery bag and a vaguely edible-looking eggplant casserole. She takes one look at Michelle, sitting on the sofa with June clamped onto her breast like a barnacle, and holds her arms out.

“Give me that baby right now,” May says firmly, like a take-no-shit angel of mercy. “Pump a couple of bottles, then go take a shower and a nap. Have a nice dinner with Peter tonight and drink some of that champagne. I’ll watch June.”

Michelle wants to say thank you, but she knows that if she even opens her mouth she’ll burst into tears of relief and won’t be able to stop crying until she sheds every single tear in her body and shrivels up like a desiccated leaf, so she just obediently hands June over and follows the rest of May’s instructions.

She wakes from her nap to the scent of burning eggplant. She follows the smell from the bedroom to the kitchen, where she finds Peter frantically waving a dish towel over a smoking casserole dish. He looks over his shoulder at Michelle, offering her a sheepish smile.

“I was trying to have dinner warmed up for you when you got up from your nap,” he says. “But I fucked it up real bad.”

“It’s okay,” Michelle says, going over and pulling open the drawer where they keep the take out menus. “I’m not really a big fan of eggplant, anyway. How does curry and champagne sound?”

“Perfect,” Peter replies, relieved.

“It always feels sorta weird when June isn’t here,” he says, a box of curry and a bottle of champagne later, “She’s only been here a couple of months but it kinda feels like she’s always been a part of our lives—like I can barely remember what it was like before her, right?”

“Right,” Michelle lies, thinking that she can very clearly remember what life was like before June, how clear and straight Michelle’s trajectory through life had been before surprise parenthood had thrown it off course. She pops open another bottle of champagne and pours herself a full glass, hoping to lubricate the forgetting process.

They find a movie on Netflix and settle on the sofa to watch it, but neither of them really pays any attention to it—Peter drifts in and out of sleep the second the movie starts, while Michelle stares unseeingly at the screen, her mind miles away.

“Can I ask you a personal question?” she asks, when the movie ends.

“That sounds vaguely ominous for some reason,” Peter mumbles sleepily beside her. “But yeah, of course. I have no secrets from you. What’s up?”

“What was the best sex you’ve ever had?”

Peter sits up straight, looking a little panicked. “Oh god, this sounds like a trap...I know I’m supposed to say you, and a very specific event that you’re thinking of, like...our wedding night?”

“We didn’t have sex on our wedding night. You’d shattered both femurs and your pelvis the night before,” Michelle reminds him.

“Oh, right...jeez, how did I forget that?” Peter asks, a little furrow of confusion between his brows.

“You were super doped up on pain meds. They wouldn’t let you sign the marriage certificate till a week later, in case you were being coerced.”

“Oh man, that’s right...wow, I really fucked that up, didn’t I?” Peter says, looking remorseful now. “I fucked up June’s birth, too...”

Michelle rolls her eyes. “Oh my god, please stop before you descend into another guilt spiral. I can’t handle it right now. It’s fine. I knew what I signed up for.”

She stops a moment, brushing her untamed curls away from her face. “And anyway, I wasn’t thinking about us....I was thinking about...Johnny Storm.”

“Johnny Storm?” Peter repeats, the furrow of confusion knitting itself deeper. “That destructive idiot? What about him?”

“When you guys were together, how would you decide who would...you know...”

Michelle makes a gesture with her hands.

Peter frowns at her. “Are we talking about butt stuff? ‘Cause listen, you know I support your hobbies and I think it’s great that you enjoy writing Spider-Man fan fiction, but I’m _begging_ you to stop using anecdotes about my actual sex life in your stories. It weirds me out to know strangers on the internet are basically peering into my bedroom—”

Michelle waves a hand impatiently. “This isn’t about smutty fan fiction. It’s for personal edification.”

“Oh. Well...” Peter shrugs. “I dunno, it would just kinda happen organically. I don’t tend to go into the bedroom with anyone with any kind of game plan in mind. Usually I’m just thinking about how lucky I am to be getting laid at all, so I’m pretty content to just go along with whatever my partner wants. It wasn’t like we flipped a coin or anything.” He pauses, thinking. “Although, we would sometimes play rock, paper, scissors if we were really at a standstill.”

“Wow, romance isn’t dead,” Michelle says drolly. She pauses a beat, then asks, “Do you ever...miss it?”

“Miss it?”

“Yeah. You know,” Michelle says. “The sex.”

“ _The_ sex?” Peter echoes, the furrow returning. “With him in particular?”

“Let’s say yes for the purposes of this conversation.”

Peter straightens up, folding one leg and turning on the sofa to face Michelle

“Okay, so girl talk? He was only okay,” he tells her. “He relied a little too heavily on his good looks and it made him kinda lazy in bed. I always ended up doing like ninety-percent of the work. It’s honestly part of why I broke up with him. Like, I’m out there getting my ass kicked by the Rhino, right? Sometimes I wanna lie back and be treated, you know? I think I deserve to be treated every now and then.”

Michelle snorts, smiling. “You do, absolutely.”

“Thanks for always validating me, Em,” Peter says, leaning over to kiss her. He sits back again. “Now, Eliav at Hot Bialys and Bagels? Different story.”

“Eliav at Hot Bialys and Bagels?” Michelle repeats, her eyebrows shooting upwards. “Peter—you fucked my favorite cute bagel guy?”

“Our favorite cute bagel guy,” Peter corrects. “It was a summer fling, after you broke up with me during finals our junior year—which yes, I totally deserved, but my heart was broken, I needed something to distract me from the agony, and cute bagel guy was being all flirty one day, so I went for it.”

Michelle leans over and punches him in the shoulder, outraged. “I can’t believe this! You _knew_ he was my favorite cute bagel guy. The _betrayal._ ”

“Oh, please...you would have done the same if the opportunity had presented itself.”

Michelle shrugs. “Yeah, you’re right.” She narrows her eyes. “Wait...is that why he always sizes up your coffee order for free?”

“No, he sizes up my coffee ‘cause I fixed his oven,” Peter explains. “I get the extra cream cheese for free because of the fucking.”

“No one has ever given me free extra cream cheese for fucking them,” Michelle complains.

Peter shrugs, smiling smugly. “What can I say? I’m good at what I do.”

Michelle rolls her eyes. “And so humble, too. So what does a bagel guy have on the Human Torch, anyway?”

“A really big dick,” Peter says, holding his hands up like he’s measuring an invisible phallus of impressive size. “Huuuuuge.”

Michelle smirks at him. “Parker...are you a size queen?”

“Nooooo,” Peter protests. “I’m just stating an observable fact. It’s not about size, anyway—it’s about the motion of the ocean, right?” He looks at Michelle intently. “ _Right,_ Michelle?”

“Yeah, sure. Motion of the ocean, definitely,” Michelle agrees flippantly, giving a thumbs up.

“Hmm,” Peter replies, giving her a look out of the corner of his eye before laying his head back on the sofa again. “So. Are you edified?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

“No problem,” Peter says, holding his arm up to check his watch. “What time is it? You wanna watch an episode of Great British Bake Off before May brings June back?”

“Sure,” Michelle agrees, settling back on the sofa and leaning into Peter’s side.

They watch the bakers fumble through making fig rolls for a bit in companionable silence, but Michelle’s mind is once again elsewhere. Eventually, she delicately clears her throat.

“I could treat you,” she suggests.

Peter lifts his head to blink at her. “You could treat me?”

“I mean…yeah…I was thinking...we could try something new,” Michelle offers. “If you’re interested, of course. You know...until I get over… _this._ ”

“ _This?_ ” Peter asks, quirking an eyebrow in confusion. “What’s _this?_ ”

 _Motherhood,_ Michelle thinks.

“You know...my funk,” she says.

Peter continues to look confused. “Your funk?”

Michelle takes a deep breath. “Okay, so, honest truth? I don’t want to have sex—at least, not in the... _traditional_ way, for lack of a better word. I’m not ready for it,” she confesses. “I don’t know when I’m gonna be ready. But I _want_ to want it, you know? I miss it. I miss...being together like that. So I was thinking…we could try it this way, instead.”

Peter blinks at her again, the gears visibly turning in his head. “This way?”

Michelle decides not to beat around the bush any longer. “I’m asking if I can stick things in your butt for the sake of strengthening marital intimacy and in a spirit of mutual trust and enjoyment.”

“Ohhh,” Peter says, the confusion clearing from his face. He considers her offer for a moment before taking a deep breath. “I’m gonna be completely honest with you...I’m _really_ into this idea if you are, too. It might be the hottest thing you’ve ever said to me. Whatever you wanna do, whatever makes you comfortable and happy—I’m on board, one-hundred-percent. I love you.”

Michelle smiles. “I love you, too, you dork.”

She kisses him, sweetly, feeling like a weight has lifted off her shoulders, like she’s finally found the path home in the dark woods.

***

Michelle has always been a planner, whether that was scheduling time for her various high school extracurriculars and assignments, or choosing which law schools to apply to, or giving her husband a toe-curling punch-in-the-gut orgasm.

This final endeavor requires her to visit certain websites for research purposes while using the privacy mode on her browser. She’s alway been a good student, too, and she applies herself to these studies with the same rapt intensity that she had to her poli sci classes in college.

When she feels like she has a firm grasp of the theory, she moves on to the execution stage of her plan, handing baby June off to Gwen again shortly before Peter is due home from work. Gwen gives Michelle a smug, knowing smile but politely refrains from any commentary.

Then Michelle gets herself ready, taking a shower that switches on a whim between scalding hot and icy cold. She dries off, runs a mascara spool through her eyelashes and brushes her teeth. She follows this grooming up by putting on her nicest pair of underwear and a sturdy nursing bra. The nursing bra doesn’t have much in the way of sex appeal, but she doesn’t trust her lacy, flimsy lingerie to hold up to the ampleness of her postpartum bosom or its annoying tendency to spring leaks at the slightest provocation, so she has to make do.

She takes one last look at herself in the mirror, smoothing down the frizz on the crown of her head, before climbing into bed to wait for Peter to come home. She tries out various seductive poses while she waits before finally giving up and settling for simply lying on her back with her hands folded over her collarbones.

Michelle doesn’t have to wait long, hearing the keys in the lock a short time later, Peter miraculously home on time for once. He trudges into the bedroom and dumps his backpack on the floor by the door, shimmying out of his jacket. He glances over at the bed as he makes his way to the closet to hang it up, tripping over his feet when he spies Michelle lying there nearly nude on top of the comforter, waiting for him to notice her.

“Hello, hello,” he says, a smile spreading across his face as his eyes rove appreciatively over her body. “Is all that for me?”

“Sure is,” Michelle says, smiling back at him. “Gwen can only take June for a half-hour, so you better hurry up and get undressed. We gotta make this quick.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Peter replies enthusiastically, toeing out of his shoes and stripping with lightning speed.

He climbs into bed, stretching out over her, his body warm against hers. He kisses her and she puts her arms around his neck, returning the embrace, before rolling out from under him and tipping Peter onto his back. He looks up at her, eyes half-lidded, dark and adoring.

“Put your hands on the headboard,” Michelle says. “Pretend like you’re tied up.”

“Pretend?” Peter asks, raising his eyebrows. “You’re not even gonna bother to actually tie me up?”

“Well, what’s the point?” Michelle says with a shrug as she settles between his thighs. “You could just break free whenever, so really it’s all pretend either way.”

“Okay, yeah, good point,” Peter says, reaching overhead and placing his hands on the headboard.

Michelle leans over him, placing a line of soft little love bites across the planes of his chest, and then kissing a path down the center of his torso, shuffling backwards on the bed as she does and nudging his legs further apart to give herself more room.

She sits up, running her thumbs lightly along the v-shaped indent of his hips, watching his stomach muscles tighten reflexively in response, before she wraps a hand around him. She strokes him lightly a few times with a loose fist, and Peter lets out a sharp exhale, his eyes squeezing shut.

“It’s been a while, huh, tiger?” Michelle asks dryly, smirking as she watches him struggle.

“Ha. Yeah, you could say that,” Peter replies, his voice a little strained and his face tight with concentration.

“Poor baby,” Michelle murmurs, bending down once more. She licks a stripe up the length of him, feeling his muscles twitch under the hand she has resting on his thigh, and then takes him in her mouth.

Peter’s hands immediately find their way to her hair, lightly combing through her curls.

Michelle lifts her head to glare at him. “You’re tied up, remember?”

“Oh, right, my bad,” Peter says, obediently putting his hands back on the headboard. “Wow, what are these restraints made out of? Vibranium? They’re so strong. I can’t break free. I’m so helpless and at your total mercy right now. You could do anything you wanted to me.”

Michelle swats him on the thigh, trying not to smile. “You’re such an asshole. Stop.”

“I’m just trying to play along with your fantasy,” Peter says innocently.

“Then stop talking,” Michelle says sternly. “You have an imaginary gag in your mouth now.”

Peter closed his lips tightly, letting go of the headboard to give her a thumbs up.

Michelle looks at him from under lowered brows. “Vibranium. Cuffs.”

Peter puts his hand back on the headboard, his expression apologetic.

Michelle gives him one last warning look before going back to work on him with her mouth. She goes slow, drawing the pleasure out, partly because she can tell that he’s already using all his willpower not to finish right then and there, and partly for the enjoyment she herself gets from witnessing this Herculean effort at obedience and patience.

She slips her free hand into her underwear and slides two fingers along the wet heat between her thighs, lightly circling the hard little bead hidden in her slick folds, even that barely-there touch sending a jolt of pleasure deep into her belly. She applies herself with a little more speed and enthusiasm, bobbing her head and swiping her tongue along all those sensitive places she knows will have him unraveling.

She waits until Peter is restlessly shifting around on the bed and making soft, helpless little noises around his imaginary gag before she moves to execute the next part of her plan. She lifts her head again and withdraws her hand from between her legs, bringing it to her mouth. She wets her middle finger, tasting her own salty-sweetness, then traces the digit down the crease where Peter’s thigh joins his hip, then lower, sliding her slick finger along the cleft of his ass and gently teasing him with just the tip of it, testing the waters.

“Oh, _whoa,_ —you were actually serious the other night,” Peter says breathlessly, forgetting about the imaginary gag.

“Is that okay?” Michelle asks.

“Yes, absolutely, it’s great, go for it,” Peter replies in a rush, hitching a leg up to give her better access. He lets go of the headboard again as she presses deeper, his hands petting her hair, and this time she lets him, raptly watching the almost pained look that contorts his face as she strokes him from the inside out, his chest heaving erratically.

Michelle lowers her head and gets her mouth on him again, taking him as deep as she can, swallowing around him while at the same time firmly curling her finger the way all the websites had instructed.

Peter nearly knees her in the face, which is all the warning she gets before salty hot liquid is shooting up the back of her throat and dribbling out of her nose. She pulls off, coughing and sputtering, tears streaming down her face.

“Oh, MJ!” Peter says, sitting up and cupping her face in his hands. “I’m _so_ sorry—that seriously came outta nowhere. It’s like you said—it’s been a while, and I was _not_ expecting you to know how to pull the trigger like that on your first try.”

“I did research,” Michelle chokes out, still coughing, wiping at her wet, sticky face with her hands.

“You did?” Peter’s face softens with affection. “Aw, Em. Baby.”

He leans over, grabbing the box of tissues off the bedside table and handing a wad of them to her.

Michelle wipes her runny eyes and then presses the tissues to her nose, blowing out gobs of snot and jizz.

“Gross,” she rasps out, grimacing. She coughs again, blinking watery eyes at Peter. Her nose is stinging and she’s pretty sure she has spunk trapped deep inside her sinuses, and she hasn’t been this turned on since before she was pregnant.

“That was so hot,” she says hoarsely.

Peter raises his eyebrows.

“Really?” he asks dubiously. “Which part? Shooting jizz out of your nose, or the butt stuff?”

Michelle spits another gob of semen into the tissue. She sniffs, wiping her nose with the back of her hand.

“Definitely the butt stuff,” she says. “In fact...I’m thinking...we could…go bigger?”

“Bigger?” Peter repeats, blinking at her, before shrugging and smiling. “Wow, I must have done something really great in a past life to deserve you in this one. Yeah, okay. We could go bigger. Whatever you want, Em. I’m there.”

Michelle sniffs again, smiling back. “Cool.”

***

The following weekend, Michelle finds herself inside of an upscale adult shop on the Upper East Side, perusing brightly-lit white shelves stocked with an enormous assortment of luxury lubes and toys of various shapes and sizes and uses.

She would have preferred to have done this particular errand online, discrete and anonymous, but Gwen had insisted on making a fun afternoon trip out of it. She’d personally chosen this particular shop herself, and the elegant boutique atmosphere—as well as the substantial price tags—seemed tailor-made for Gwen’s tastes. Michelle is less sure of herself, feeling very conscious of her stained maternity leggings as she passes by consulting executives in smart pencil skirts and designer heels comparing scented massage oil brands.

“You gotta admit, this is a lot more fun than shopping for clothes for a law school interview,” Gwen says brightly, examining a wall full of vegan pleather restraints. “Harry’s gonna be so mad we came here without him.”

“That’s his own fault for always having a hangover on Saturdays,” Michelle says, skimming over the description on the back of a box containing a toy that looks vaguely like some kind of creature you’d find at the bottom of a trench in the ocean. It turns out to be a vibrator. She sets the box back down, feeling a little intimidated by it.

“Hey, here you go,” Gwen says with a grin, holding up a comically large dildo. “Exactly what you’re looking for.”

Michelle snorts, rolling her eyes and shaking her head.

“What?” Gwen asks cheekily. “Peter _loves_ big dick.”

“He told me size doesn’t matter. That it’s all about the motion of the ocean.”

“He’s lying. I’ve seen his browser history,” Gwen says, playfully wagging the dildo at Michelle. “The bigger the better, baby.”

Michelle ignores her recommendation, deciding on a far more modestly sized strap-on. The corseted woman manning the elegant boudoir table that serves as the shop’s check out counter wraps up Michelle’s purchase in perfumed tissue paper before putting it inside of a pastel-hued box. She gives the box to Michelle with a kind of bored, perfunctory politeness, like she’s handing Michelle a shoebox or some other mundane item.

“It’s cute,” Peter says with an amused smile, when Michelle steps out of the bathroom and into the bedroom wearing her new purchase later that evening. “Very cute and… _petite._ ”

“It‘s not supposed to be cute. It’s supposed to be sexy and powerful,” Michelle replies, feeling ridiculous and indignant instead.

“I meant, like, cute-sexy. Sexy-cute,” Peter amends. “I am _very_ turned on right now, _very_ into this, I can’t _wait_ to get railed by my sexy, powerful wife. How do you want me—on my back, on my front, reverse cowboy, what? I’m very flexible, literally and figuratively speaking, so you just let me know.”

“I don’t know,” Michelle says honestly as she walks over the bed. The silicone phallus jutting from the harness between her legs wags obscenely as she does, and she has to fight back the urge to laugh.

“Oh my _god,_ ” she gasps out, her mouth splitting into a bemused grin. “How do you guys deal with this dumb thing all the time?”

Peter shrugs, grinning back at her. “I guess if you’re born with one, you don’t know any different. It’s just life. The random untimely boners that would pop up in high school, though…oof. The humiliation was very character building, at least.”

“Yeah, you’re full of character,” Michelle says dryly, her smile going fond as she stretches out on the bed next to him.

Peter rolls onto his side to face her, brushing her hair back from her face. He gently grasps her chin in his hand, tilting her face up and pressing a soft kiss to her mouth.

“Pretty baby. I love you, you know that?” he murmurs, his eyes gone soft and warm, kissing her again.

“Yeah,” Michelle murmurs back, smiling against his lips.

“Can I do something for you?” Peter asks hopefully, kissing her again. “I wanna make you feel good, too.”

“Yeah, blow me, bitch,” Michelle replies in a crude, playful manner, leaning into the absurdity.

She’s joking but Peter immediately leaps into action, shuffling off the bed and kneeling on the floor. He grabs her under the thighs and effortlessly pulls her to the edge of the mattress, and then goes straight to town on the silicone rod like it’s the real deal, gagging himself on it with a messy, earnest enthusiasm that Michelle finds both amusing and surprisingly erotic.

She strokes his hair, watching him from under lowered eyelids, pushing his head down a little every now and then or rolling her hips up since he seems to like it, humming happily around the dildo and digging his fingers firmly into her thighs. It’s the closest to her crotch she’s allowed him to get his mouth in months, and she feels a coil of heat tighten low in her belly, the insides of her upper thighs growing slick both from Peter’s saliva and her own arousal.

She releases a sharp breath, her stomach tightening, when Peter brushes his thumb along the wet seam between her thighs, cautious and featherlight, like he’s requesting permission. Michelle immediately feels that little whisper of anxious doubt in the back of her mind, but she shoves it away, focusing on Peter instead, on the rhythmic bobbing of his head and his throat working as he swallows, and the way he looks up at her with those soft dark eyes that she loves so much, tender and adoring, like he’d give her anything she asked for.

Her hands tighten in his hair and she pushes down on his head until she can feel his nose pressed against her stomach and he makes an awful, wonderful wet choking sound. He must take that as encouragement because he brushes his thumb along her flushed lips again, up and down, over and over, until her legs are jumping with little involuntary kicks, and then he presses the pad of his thumb firmly against her clit, and that’s all it takes to send her over the edge.

Michelle clamps her thighs tight against Peter’s head as waves of pleasure roll over her and leave her gasping, her whole body quivering with tension. She collapses backwards bonelessly, the muscles in her stomach and legs feeling pleasantly warm and sore following this brief but intense exertion. She lies there panting, feeling stunned at first and then so relieved that her eyes fill with tears.

Peter lifts his head and sucks in great gulps of air, blinking at her with wide, red-rimmed, watery eyes, his face a blotchy mess of tears and spit and his hair standing up in tufts where she’d grabbed at it.

“Did you just…?” he asks, his voice hoarse, looking surprised and delighted and like a total debauched wreck, the prettiest thing she’s ever laid eyes on.

Michelle cuts him off by sitting up and fiercely kissing him, afraid that if he finishes his question he’ll jinx it.

“Get on the bed,” she says. “Lie on your stomach.”

Peter climbs into bed, stretching out and folding his arms in front of him. Michelle shifts around, fishing a bottle of lube out of the nightstand and then straddling the backs of Peter’s thighs.

“I have no idea what I’m doing,” she tells him, stroking the long lean muscles in his back, running her fingertips over the red puckered rows of scars over his shoulder blade where the Lizard had clawed him to the bone years ago, and the hard knotted rosette over his hip where’d he’d landed on a spiked fence. There’s a hundred other injuries, old and new, hidden under his skin, she knows, and she wants to find every single one and kiss it. “If it hurts, you have to promise you’ll tell me.”

“It’s not gonna hurt. Go slow and use a lot of lube. You got this. I trust you,” Peter says, giving her a reassuring smile over his shoulder. He wiggles his hips under her, his smile turning cheeky. “You’re safe to come in for landing. Come on, baby, give it to me.”

Michelle snorts in amusement, shuffling backwards and nudging his legs apart. She grabs the bottle of lube and slicks up the dildo, then adds a little more before wiping her palm dry on the sheet. She hesitates a moment, and then in an abundance of caution, drizzles more lube over the cleft of Peter’s ass.

“Fuck, that’s cold,” Peter yelps. “Jesus, I feel like you just emptied that whole bottle down my asscrack. It’s dripping onto the sheets.”

“You said use a lot of lube,” Michelle says, tossing the bottle aside and pinching his ass cheek. “Stop clenching up.”

“Ow—I can’t help it. It’s an involuntary reaction to the cold,” Peter whines, looking over his shoulder. “And not to brag or anything, but I think I can handle your little fella there just fine. It’s no cute bagel guy.”

“Do I need to get the imaginary gag out again?” Michelle asks, pinching his cheek again, harder, just to remind him who’s supposed to be in charge here, and then she shuffles closer, lining herself up.

“I’m just trying to reassure you,” Peter says. “You know, shore up your confidence, so you don’t—”

Michelle presses her hips forward, which shuts him up far more effectively than a gag, imaginary or otherwise. He drops his face into his arms, going very still and silent, while Michelle inches her way closer, until her hips are flush against the swell of his ass.

“You doing okay there, cowboy?” she asks after a moment.

Peter lifts his head, taking a deep breath. He clears his throat a couple of times.

“Yep, I’m so, so good, never better,” he says finally. “But maybe next time you could give me like a heads up before you ram the door down. A little courtesy knock would have been much appreciated.”

“Sorry,” Michelle says, pressing a contrite kiss to the back of his shoulder. “What do I do now? Is there...a way you like it or whatever?”

“I mean, no, not really...you can just, you know— _move._ ”

Michelle moves, slowly at first and then with a little more enthusiasm, trying out a few different angles of approach and observing which seem to elicit the most positive responses. Unfortunately, Peter isn’t giving her much to work with.

“Are you enjoying this?” Michelle finally asks after a few minutes of this, during which Peter has been mostly silent and still again, his hands fisted in the sheets.

“Yeah, yeah, it’s good, so good,” Peter assures her. “You can even go a little harder—yeah, even harder than that, don’t hold back, you’re not gonna hurt me I promise, just—yeah, like that.”

Michelle really gets into it, grabbing him by the hip with one hand and the shoulder with the other to give herself more leverage, but it doesn’t seem to do much beyond getting her winded and panting. She’s starting to sweat from the exertion, the harness chafing around her thighs.

“Please tell me you’re close, because my legs are cramping up,” she eventually says after several more minutes of frustrated effort. “I know I promised to treat you, but I don’t have super spider-strength or endurance. I’ve spent the last two months doing nothing but sitting on a couch. This is the hardest workout I’ve done in ages.”

“I’m having a thought, actually,” Peter replies.

Michelle pauses, taking that as a good excuse for a breather. “I’m listening.”

“I’m thinking...we could maybe...go bigger?” Peter suggests.

“ _Bigger?_ I thought you said it was about the motion of the ocean,” Michelle says dryly.

“I did say that,” Peter agrees, twisting awkwardly to look over his shoulder at her. “But to be honest…I love you, Em, but…you’re not really making any waves.”

Michelle raises an eyebrow. “Are you criticizing my technique...”

“It’s _constructive_ criticism—”

“You haven’t exactly given me a lot of instruction. I asked you what I should do, and all you said was _move,_ and then when I asked for feedback, all you gave me was _move harder,_ ” MJ complains. “You’re a bad teacher. What kind of garbage ass advice is that? This is my first time doing this, remember?”

“You’re right. You’re absolutely right,” Peter soothes. “Which is why I suggested going bigger—just to help you get over the learning curve. That’s all. You got that box of stuff Betty gave you at the baby shower—there’s gotta be something in there that we can use.”

Michelle huffs out a sigh, and then nods. “Okay, yeah. Don’t move. I want you ready and waiting for me.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Peter says, saluting her.

Michelle shuffles off the bed, unbuckling the harness from around her hips and letting it drop to the floor. She rubs at the red marks it’s left on the tops of her thighs as she kneels down to peer under the bed, shoving aside piles of diapers until she finds the box of glass dildos that has been sitting collecting dust for months now. She pulls it out and opens it, humming to herself as she considers her options. She selects one of the mid-size ones and climbs back into bed.

“How’s this?” Michelle asks, holding up the smooth, tapered glass cylinder for Peter’s inspection.

He rolls onto his back to look at it, hesitating as he eyes the toy.

“What?” Michelle asks. “Too big?”

Peter shakes his head. “No, no, that’s not it. The size is fine. It’s—”

He stops, looking at Michelle, who looks right back at him, eyebrows raised, waiting for him to continue.

Peter waves a dismissive hand instead. “Yeah, no, it’s good. But listen—”

He sits up and grasps Michelle’s shoulders, looking her squarely in the eye. “This is extremely important. Rule number one—do _not_ let go of that thing. Got it?”

“Don’t let go. Got it,” Michelle confirms. “What are the other rules?”

Peter waves a hand again, shrugging as he turns back over. “I dunno, there are probably others but I’m really horny and can’t think of them right now. Just lube that thing up really well and stick it in.”

“Lube it up and stick it in,” Michelle repeats dryly as she finds the bottle of lube in the sheets and pops the cap open. “You say the most romantic things.”

She settles between Peter’s legs and slicks the glass up until it’s glistening, drying her hands on the sheets again. Peter is lying still once more, his cheek resting on his folded arms, patiently waiting, but the muscles in his back are tight with anticipation. She runs a hand soothingly down his spine from the nape of his neck to the firm swell of his ass. She presses her thumb into one of the dimples at the base of his spine and her index finger against the other, and then leans down to place a soft kiss within the V of her fingers. Peter lets out a long, slow breath, melting into the sheets.

“Are you ready?” Michelle murmurs.

Peter nods against his arms. “Please…”

She teases him instead, rubbing the dildo up and down the cleft of his ass until his hips are hopping a little.

“You’re killing me here, Em,” Peter finally says, looking over his shoulder at her.

“Sorry,” Michelle says with a pleased smile. “You just look so hot like this. I’m really enjoying myself. I don’t think I’ve ever really appreciated this side of you as much as it deserves. You have a _fantastic_ ass.”

“Thank you. I’ve been told it’s one of my best features. Now, please, for the love of god— _fuck me._ ”

Michelle takes mercy on him, pausing a moment to apply more lube to the dildo. She tosses the bottle aside and puts a hand on Peter’s hip, bending down to give him a sharp little bite on his ass cheek.

“I’m gonna fuck you so good, baby,” she promises, kissing the red mark she’s left on his skin.

Peter responds with a little pleased sound that turns into a soft groan as she finally breaches him. She presses forward gently and slowly, stopping every now and then to give him a chance to adjust to the intrusion, peppering his quivering thighs with little kisses.

“Keep going, keep going, fuck, please, you don’t have to stop,” Peter babbles at her. “I can take it, I can—”

He cuts himself off with a noise that sounds like Michelle’s just reached an arm down his throat and punched him directly in the stomach.

“Oh my god!” she says, alarmed. “Did I just hurt you?”

“No, that was actually a happy sound,” Peter assures her, his voice a little strained. “A _very_ happy sound.”

“That didn’t sound like a happy sound,” Michelle says, her brows knitted together. “You sounded like you were being murdered.”

“It was. I promise,” Peter insists. “I’ve never been so happy in my life. God, I don’t deserve you. Keep going.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, please. I might die if you don’t.”

“Okay, hang on,” Michelle says, fumbling for the bottle of lube where she’s tossed it. She’s having to awkwardly cross her free hand over her body to reach for it, but the bottle is just out of reach. She lets go of the dildo for a second so she can grab it, leaning over on her elbow and snatching the bottle up. She sits back up, uncapping the bottle and going to pour more lube onto the dildo, only to discover that it’s disappeared without a trace.

“Uh-oh,” Michelle says.

“Uh-oh?” Peter repeats, looking over his shoulder at her, a faintly alarmed expression on his face. “What uh-oh?”

Michelle wets her lips and clears her throat. “Okay, so...I don’t want you to freak out, but—”

“You let go, didn’t you?” Peter asks flatly.

Michelle grimaces. “For like _one_ second.”

“That’s all it takes!” Peter says, groaning. “Oh my god...I can’t believe this is happening to me...”

He starts to sit up. Michelle presses a hand to his back.

“Don’t get up, you idiot—you might lodge it in there deeper,” she says. “Let me try to fish it out.”

“ _Abso-fucking-lutely_ not,” Peter says firmly, shrugging her hand away and sitting up, wincing. “I’d like to keep at least a _little_ mystery alive in our marriage. Let me handle this.”

He gingerly shuffles off the bed and hobbles awkwardly across the hall to retreat into the bathroom. Michelle follows guiltily behind. She leans against the closed door, offering Peter advice and encouragement through it, which he answers first with terse replies and then with silence. Michelle eventually gives up, sitting down on the floor to wait.

The bathroom door eventually opens enough for Peter to stick his head out. He looks down at her, his face pale and the corners of his mouth drawn down in a tight, unhappy frown.

“Hey, uh...no need to panic or anything, everything is still totally cool, but...could you call Johnny and tell him to come over?” he asks. “I think this situation requires a trusted bro.”

Michelle gets back to her feet, raising an eyebrow. “You trust Johnny to fish that thing out but not me?”

Peter reaches out to place a hand on her shoulder. “Em, honey, you are the love of my life, my _most_ trusted bro, but when you have a serious problem with your pipes, you don’t fuck around with it yourself—you call a licensed, experienced plumber, right?”

“Okay, yeah, good point,” Michelle agrees.

She makes the call to Johnny, and then goes to the bedroom to throw on a t-shirt and a pair of maternity leggings before half-heartedly attempting to tidy up the apartment a little, just to keep herself busy while she waits for him to arrive.

The benefit of having a friend gifted with the power of flight is that she doesn’t have to wait long. She’s tossing some dirty clothes into the back of the closet when there’s a rap at the door.

“Hey, little mama,” Johnny greets when Michelle opens it, flashing her a brilliant grin before wrapping her up in a warm hug that lifts her off her feet. “So you need a _real_ superhero—what can I help you with?”

Michelle explains their predicament.

Johnny is refreshingly unfazed. He gives a sage nod. “Yeah, that can happen. It’s like the Bermuda Triangle. Things will just _poof_ —vanish. Rule number one—always use a toy with a flared base.”

“Peter told me rule number one was to not let go,” Michelle replies.

“Yeah, well, he’s an idiot with a dildo lost in his guts,” Johnny points out. “Don’t listen to him.”

“I won’t next time.”

“ _Next time,_ ” Johnny repeats with a wicked grin. “Damn, Pete really hit the jackpot with you, huh?” He looks Michelle up and down, winking. “You look fantastic, by the way. A total MILF. If you guys are ever interested in a little three-way action while you’re on this beautiful erotic journey, hit me up.”

Down the hallway, Peter sticks his head out the bathroom door, scowling. “Hey, asshole, I can hear you hitting on my wife. Dildo be damned—I can still beat the shit outta you.”

“You are so uptight, dude,” Johnny calls back, before turning to Michelle. “You said it was a glass dildo, right? You could probably just leave it in there and eventually it will come out on its own as a handful of sand.”

“Listen, I’m genuinely flattered by your offer, but for right now can you please just help him?” Michelle asks impatiently. “I think he’s having a real crisis, so be nice.”

“No worries. I got this,” Johnny says confidently, cracking his knuckles in a frankly alarming manner before strolling down the hall and joining a still scowling Peter in the bathroom.

Michelle retreats to the sofa, collapsing down onto it in a boneless heap. She leans forward, dropping her head into her hands. She’s starting to think she’s trapped in a vicious cycle, where just when her life is starting to look up, disaster will strike. She wants to tell herself she’ll laugh about this later, but right now nothing feels very funny.

There’s another knock at the door, interrupting her brooding.

Michelle lifts her head with a little groan, dragging herself off the couch and trudging back to the door. She opens it, expecting to find Gwen returning with June, but finding herself face-to-face with Tony Stark instead.

“Uh-oh,” Michelle says.

Tony snorts. “Not the first time I’ve been greeted with that. Hello to you, too.” He holds up a bag. “I come bearing gifts, so turn that frown upside down.”

As usual, Tony doesn’t wait to be invited inside, breezing past Michelle into the apartment. He stands in the living room, setting the bag on the floor and rubbing his hands together as he looks around, before turning to face Michelle.

“Where’s my baby?” he asks.

“Uh...Gwen took her,” Michelle replies, casting an anxious, furtive look down the hallway towards the bathroom. “She’ll probably be gone for a while, so...”

The universe tosses her a scrawny little bone—Tony actually takes the hint, for once. He glances down at the coffee table and spots one the empty bottles of champagne that has been sitting there since May brought them over. Tony looks back at Michelle, an understanding smile appearing on his face.

“Ah, having a little date night?” he says. “Good for you. That’s really important, you know, that you guys remember to make time for yourselves now as parents. It’s tough, especially in these early years, but it’ll make a difference.”

“Sure does,” Michelle says with artificial cheer, attempting to return his smile but only managing a kind of twisted grimace as she mentally begs him to leave. She lets out a sigh of relief when Tony waves a hand and starts towards the door.

“Alright, well—I’ll get out of your way,” he says briskly as he holds his arms out to Michelle for a hug. “If you guys ever need a break, give me a call. Pep and I are always happy to babysit.”

“Thanks, I appreciate that,” Michelle says sincerely, hugging him.

“Sure,” Tony says, patting her back before releasing her. “Where’s Pete? Let me say hey to him before I run.”

Michelle’s relief evaporates. For a moment, she flounders while Tony waits for her to reply. She blinks at him, swallowing.

“Uh...he’s...in the bathroom,” she manages, scrambling. “We had May’s leftover eggplant casserole for dinner, so he’s probably gonna be in there for a while, but I’ll tell him you stopped by, have him call you, or—”

The bathroom door opens and Johnny comes strolling out, rolling his sleeves down.

“Yeah, so that thing is like lodged somewhere around his tonsils at this point. It’s not coming out without some serious intervention. You got a tub of Vaseline and some barbecue tongs somewhere?” he says as he comes down the hallway. He catches sight of Tony and flashes him a smile. “Oh, hey, Mom. How’s it going?”

Tony looks from Johnny to Michelle, eyebrows raised. “Do I wanna know what’s going on here?”

Michelle presses her lips into a thin line. She’s standing in her cruddy little apartment, wearing a pair of stained second-hand maternity leggings, sleep deprived, hair unwashed, bills piling up on the countertop, surrounded by literal superheroes. June has been away for nearly two hours now, and Michelle can feel milk leaking into her ugly maternity bra. She has never felt more human or vulnerable in her life.

“I stuck a glass dildo in Peter’s ass and it got lost,” Michelle explains matter-of-factly, deciding that this situation is beyond shame at this point.

“ _Michelle!_ ” Peter hollers from the bathroom, clearly disagreeing with her assessment.

Tony absorbs this information with remarkable grace. He blinks a few times, then briefly presses a hand to his forehead, before gesturing towards Johnny.

“And what exactly is Matchstick’s role in all this?” he asks warily.

“I’m Search and Rescue,” Johnny replies, saluting.

Tony pinches the bridge of his nose, sighing and muttering to himself.

“Barbecue tongs...thank _god_ I got here when I did....Alright,” he says, jerking his head towards the door. “Come on. I’ll give you a ride to the hospital.”

Michelle is grateful to accept the help. She grabs Peter some clothes and then assists him down the hallway.

“If they have to operate, and I’m fortunate enough to die on the table, I want you to make sure they know that I do _not_ want to be resuscitated,” Peter tells Michelle as he hobbles along beside her. “Tell our daughter I died saving kindergarteners from a fire or something.”

“Will do,” Michelle says, squeezing his arm comfortingly.

***

At the ER, Michelle sits on a hard plastic chair in the waiting room, idling thumbing through a magazine and sipping a styrofoam cup of lukewarm vending machine coffee. She is very familiar with this waiting room and this terrible vending machine coffee, having spent many hours of her life sitting within its walls and drinking many, many cups of garbage coffee.

She’s only been waiting about thirty-minutes during this particular trip when Pepper Potts walks through the doors, looking immaculate in a long dark overcoat. She spots Michelle and comes striding over to her, leaning down to wrap her in a hug.

“Oh, honey, you look exhausted,” Pepper murmurs against Michelle’s cheek. She straightens up, squeezing Michelle’s shoulders and offering her an understanding smile. “I know that look very well. Come on. I have a car waiting—let’s go pick up the baby and I’ll take you home. Tony can manage things here.”

Michelle _is_ exhausted, and she’s perfectly happy to let someone else take care of her for a bit—especially someone who radiates poise and self-assuredness and kindly, maternal grace the way Pepper Potts does.

“I’ve been in this exact situation,” Pepper says, once they’ve settled in the backseat of the waiting town car and are making their way across the city. “And I want you to know—everything you’re feeling is normal and valid.”

Michelle frowns at her. “You’ve had to take your husband to the hospital after losing a dildo in his ass?”

Pepper gives the most un-Pepper sounding snort. “No—well, yes, admittedly I have. We weren’t married at the time, not even dating, which is even worse, I’d say. I was still just Tony’s overworked PA, then, and Tony was...a bigger mess than he is today. It certainly made me question all of my life choices.”

She looks over at Michelle, smiling slyly. “On the plus side, I was able to negotiate for a sixty-percent pay raise afterwards.”

Michelle smiles back, huffing out a little laugh. “You’re my hero, you know that? You’re incredible.”

Pepper’s smile turns warm. “That’s very kind of you to say. But I’m not always so capable.”

She hands Michelle a bottle of water from the little built in cooler in the vehicle’s door.

“When I got pregnant with Morgan, you know what my first feeling was?” she asks.

“What?”

“Regret,” Pepper says, her eyes serious now. “We wanted that baby, we did, but with everything that had happened, with the way the world was...I wondered if we had made a mistake. I wondered...if it was selfish, to have a child and know that she could lose her father at any time. It’s a very lonely feeling. And motherhood can already be a lonely experience.”

Michelle says nothing, looking down at the bottle of water clasped in her hands, a tight lump in her throat.

Pepper reaches over and squeezes her hand. “You’ll have good days and bad days, but I promise you’ll start to feel like yourself again. And if you are having a bad day, there’s nothing wrong with asking for help. You’re never alone, even if it feels like you are.”

Michelle sniffs, taking a deep breath before nodding.

Pepper smiles, squeezing her hand again. “Give yourself some time. Things will start to fall into place. And maybe invest in some alternative sex toys.”

Michelle snorts, covering her burning face with her hands. “Oh god, this is going to come up at every holiday dinner for the rest of my life, isn’t it?”

“I’ll ask Tony to show a little mercy, but I can’t make any promises,” Pepper says, her smile gone amused and mischievous now. “If he gets too out of hand, I have plenty of ammunition to fire back at him.”

“Thank you,” Michelle replies sincerely, managing a rueful smile in return.

She’s been home for another couple of hours before Peter arrives back at their apartment. He climbs into bed beside her, gingerly settling on his stomach.

“How was it?” Michelle asks him.

“Well…on a discomfort scale of one to ten, where one is stubbing your toe and ten is being lectured by Tony Stark about safe anal play for thirty-seven _excruciating_ minutes, I’d put it around a five,” Peter replies. “Funnily enough, the breathing and relaxation exercises we learned in the natural birthing classes really came in handy, especially when the doc broke out the forceps.”

Michelle snorts. “I’m glad to hear that. And I’m really sorry I got a dildo stuck in your ass.”

“No, don’t apologize. This was completely my fault,” Peter says. “I screwed up rule number one. I knew I was spitting in God’s face and flirting with the devil when I told you to stick a glass dildo with no base in my ass, but I did it anyway because I am—as Tony Stark correctly labeled me—a horny little idiot with shit for brains. That’s on me. I’ll be smarter next time.”

“Yeah, about next time…I was actually thinking...” Michelle starts.

Peter takes a deep, shuddering breath beside her, before turning on his side to face her.

“I’m listening,” he says.

***

A week later, Michelle sits beside Peter in mismatched chairs at their tiny kitchen table. Peter is fidgeting in his chair and drumming his fingers on the tabletop. His other hand clasps Michelle’s under the table. She squeezes it, and he looks over at her, flashing her a brief, reassuring smile.

Johnny Storm sits across from them, his eyebrows raised so high they’re practically disappearing into his hair as he looks at the two of them.

“Hold on, lemme make sure I’m hearing this right,” he says, leaning forward on his elbows and narrowing his eyes. “You want me to bone you while MJ watches?”

Peter clears his throat, rhythmically squeezing Michelle’s hand. “Yep. That’s what we’re pitching here.”

Johnny turns his attention to Michelle. “And you’re like… _totally_ cool with this…?”

“It was my idea, actually,” Michelle replies. “It’s, you know, the visual part that I find, uh… _stimulating._ ”

“Hey, that’s cool. I’m very sex positive. I don’t kink shame,” Johnny tells her, before fixing Peter with a level look. “Unlike some people at this table.”

“Oh my _god_ , for the last time—food does _not_ belong in the bedroom, okay?” Peter spits out. “It’s unhygienic.”

“ _It’s unhygienic,_ ” Johnny mimics in a whiny voice, rolling his eyes. “You are such a boring nerd.”

Michelle coughs pointedly, trying to get them back on track. “So, anyway…what do you think about this…proposition?”

“What do I think?” Johnny says, sitting back in his chair. A delighted grin spreads across his entire face. “I think I’m dreaming. Somebody pinch me. This is like my favorite fantasy come to life.”

Peter raises an eyebrow, frowning at him. “Your favorite fantasy is banging me in front of my wife?”

“No, I said it’s _like_ my favorite fantasy,” Johnny corrects. “My favorite fantasy is a full-on threesome with you guys, with MJ in the middle—like a sexy superhero sandwich.”

Peter blinks at him, and then turns towards Michelle. “I know you said you wanted a trusted bro to do the deed when we discussed this, but are you _sure_ you don’t wanna ask cute bagel guy instead? The fact that he still gives me extra cream cheese for free all these years after our little fling makes me think he’d be agreeable.”

“Are you talking about Eliav at Hot Bialys and Bagels?” Johnny asks. “‘Cause I’d definitely be down to double team you with him, if MJ’s cool with it.”

Peter frowns at him again. “You know Eliav?”

“ _Know_ him?” Johnny replies. “I sat crooked for three days straight after our night together. Dude’s hung like a horse.”

Peter’s jaw drops open in outrage. He lunges across the table to punch Johnny in the shoulder. “You asshole! You fucked my favorite cute bagel guy?”

“Ow! God, why is your first impulse always to throw a fist, you dumb violent Neanderthal?” Johnny pouts, rubbing his shoulder. “And he’s _our_ cute bagel guy, from the sound of it.”

Peter turns back to Michelle, his expression sour. “Can we gag him during this ordeal, please? A real gag, not an imaginary one.”

“Oh, hell yeah, I’m into that,” Johnny says eagerly.

Peter jabs a finger at him. “Shut up. This isn’t about you—this is about what my wife wants and needs. You’re gonna plow me like your life depends on it, and you’re gonna make it _good_ for her.”

Johnny holds his hands up. “Hey, I’m into that, too. Whatever the boss lady wants, the boss lady gets.”

They both look at Michelle, twin expectant expressions mirrored on their faces.

Michelle takes a breath, glancing down at the time on her phone. “Okay, yeah, I’m due for a pumping session in about an hour, and there is nothing that kills the mood for me like being hooked up to that godawful machine, so let’s maybe like…head to the bedroom and get the ball rolling here, if everyone is in agreement?”

There is a round of murmured assent, Peter and Johnny nodding their heads.

“Ooookay, well…let’s go then,” Michelle says, standing up and leading the way.

“I still can’t believe this is happening. If I’m asleep right now, please God, don’t let anything wake me up,” Johnny says, clasping his hands together and looking imploringly up at the ceiling as they walk down the hallway.

Peter punches him in the arm again.

“The fuck was that for?” Johnny asks, rubbing his arm and glaring at Peter.

“‘Cause you’re making it weird, dude,” Peter replies, glaring right back at him. “Just stop talking, _please._ ”

“Alright, alright, sorry. You’d think having that dildo stuck up your ass woulda loosened you up a little,” Johnny says, nimbly dodging another fist Peter throws his way.

“I’m getting so much insight into why you guys’ relationship didn’t work out,” Michelle says dryly as they walk into the bedroom.

“So, uh…you got something in particular you wanna see?” Johnny asks Michelle, getting down in a low lunge and bouncing up and down a few times.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Peter asks, watching him.

“Stretching,” Johnny replies, switching legs. “I’m about to give the performance of a lifetime. Last thing I want is to get a hammy cramp right when I’m taking you to the final stop on the journey to pleasure town.”

“Oh my god, I can’t believe I ever fell in love with this idiot,” Peter mutters to himself, shaking his head. “Younger me was _so_ stupid.”

Johnny bends to touch his toes and then pops up again, giving Michelle a bright smile. “So how do you want us, boss? You want me to get a little rough, respectfully slap him around a little?”

Michelle snorts and shakes her head, perching herself on the edge of the bed. “Yeah, no. I want you to be nice to him. Sweet. Like…he’s precious,” she says, looking at Peter, a soft smile curling her mouth. He smiles back at her, his eyes tender. “The whole point is that you’re treating him. I want him to enjoy it. That’s what I like.”

Johnny salutes her. “You got it.”

He kneels on the bed, motioning to Peter, a saccharine smile on his face. “Come here, Petey-pie, my sweet baby boy.”

“I’ll kill you,” Peter threatens him, climbing into bed and shuffling over to Johnny on his own knees.

Johnny grins at him, and then his expression goes more serious. He reaches up and cups Peter’s face in his hands, leaning forward to kiss him.

Peter leans away. Johnny frowns, glancing over at Michelle before shrugging and trying it again, but Peter leans away once more as he gets close.

“Dude...you’re embarrassing me in front of your smoking hot wife,” Johnny says in a low voice. “We promised to make this look good for her, remember?”

“Yeah, I know,” Peter says tersely. “Let’s do it.”

Johnny shrugs again and goes in for the third time.

Peter leans away. Johnny follows Peter’s retreat this time, but Peter continues to lean farther and farther away the closer Johnny gets, turning his face away when he can’t physically lean any farther back, his expression locked in a pained grimace.

“You doin’ okay there, pal?” Johnny finally asks.

“Huh? Yeah, oh, yeah—I’m great,” Peter says with forced cheerfulness, still leaning away. “So, so good. Faaaantastic. One-hundred-percent into this, so good, very cool. It’s gonna be just like old times, right? Except my amazing, brilliant wife who I love and adore is watching now, ha, and it turns out this whole thing was really hot in theory but _very_ uncomfortable in practice—the performance anxiety I’m feeling right now is off the fucking charts, I am sweating _so bad_ and my stomach hurts, and it will be a legit miracle if I can even achieve a boner under these conditions, but if it makes her happy, it makes me happy, I would _joyfully_ die for that woman, so let’s get this show on the road and have a real good time. Bang. It. Out. Go team!”

“Your mouth is saying yes, along with a lot of other indecipherable nonsense, but your body’s saying no,” Johnny says gently, placing a hand on Peter’s shoulder. “Consent is sexy, my dude, and this feels very unsexy.”

Peter takes a deep breath, his shoulders collapsing inward. He looks over at Michelle, his eyes apologetic and sorrowful.

“Yeah, okay...I’m real sorry, Em, I wanna make you happy, but...I’m having second thoughts. I know when we discussed this I was really enthusiastic, but now...I don’t think I can do this. To quote Meat Loaf—I’d do anything for love, but I won’t do that,” he tells her solemnly. “You can pound me into the mattress every night, or we could live like monks and never touch each other again, and I’d be happy because I’d be doing it with you—and it’s gotta be you. Just me and you. I know you’re in a funk right now. I know...you’re not feeling like yourself. But to me, you just get more and more perfect, and I’m gonna work really hard to make sure you know that everyday. I love you, MJ. Whatever happens, wherever we go, no matter what—I’ll always love you.”

Michelle smiles at him, her eyes full of tears—happy tears this time.

“I love you, too,” she says, her voice breaking a little from being so overwhelmed with emotion.

Peter returns her smile, crawling across the bed to her and pulling her into his lap. She wraps her arms around his neck and he kisses her, soft and sweet and full of love, and Michelle thinks this is the happiest she’s been in a long time, here in his arms, together, just the two of them against the world.

“This is the most beautiful, romantic thing I’ve ever witnessed. I legit might cry,” Johnny pipes up. “You guys are couple goals, for real.”

Peter and MJ break apart, turning towards him.

“Dude, why are you still here?” Peter asks sourly.

“Oh, right—my bad. I got so wrapped up in the emotion, I missed my cue to leave,” Johnny says cheerfully, hopping off the bed. He saunters over to the bedroom door, pausing there to turn around and blow a few kisses in Peter and Michelle’s direction. “Ta-ta, kiddies. Remember rule number one. I don’t wanna be called back for any emergencies again.”

He gives them a wink before leaving.

Alone together at last, Peter gently clears his throat, brushing a strand of curls back from Michelle’s face and rubbing her cheek with his knuckles. She turns her attention back to him, grasping his hand and looking at him, her eyes warm and fond, the corner of her mouth turned up in wry amusement.

Peter coughs again.

“So, uh...May’s got June for another hour, and I was promised a good hard railing, so now that it’s just you and me....what do you say we break out that box of stuff Betty got you again,” he suggests with a sly smile.

Michelle snorts, returning the smile. “You really don’t learn from your mistakes, do you?”

Peter grins, shrugging. “If I did, I woulda quit this Spider-Man thing a long time ago. And I’m willing to risk it all for you, baby. We’re already up to our eyeballs in medical debt, what’s a little more? Just, you know...maybe dial back the amount of lube you use a notch or three, and keep a _real_ solid grip on that thing while you’re shoving it up there, and everything will be fine.”

Michelle snorts again, wrapping her arms around his neck and leaning into him. “Listen to you, sweet talking me.”

“What can I say—I’m a romantic,” Peter replies with a grin, lying back on the bed and pulling her down with him, their legs twined together, kissing each other again and again and again.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! You can also find me on [tumblr](https://groo-ock.tumblr.com/)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [NSFW Art: MJ on Top](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26150245) by [Machiavelien](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Machiavelien/pseuds/Machiavelien)




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